


Cryptanalysis: Hell is Round The Corner (Prequel)

by enthusiasticinformedfragging



Series: Slavecoding [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Bloodplay, Body Horror, Broken Will, Dismemberment, Forced Orgasm, Gang Rape, Mind Control, Multi, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Objectification, Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, Psychological Torture, Rape, Self-Mutilation, Sexual Slavery, Spark Sex, Surgery, Tactile Sexual Interfacing, Torture, Whump, slavecoding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 17:57:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasticinformedfragging/pseuds/enthusiasticinformedfragging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Rung onlined and took immediate inventory of changes in his frame—only to find none. He tensed up, scanned again. He'd been put through forty-seven surgeries thus far, and he'd never onlined to—to nothing. Perhaps they'd altered his scanner this time, and that was the reason it had failed to detect anything. But something else— something under his plating, beneath even his protoform, felt changed in a much deeper way than something as trivial as a scanner. Anticipation bristled at the base of his helm."</p><p>Rung's handlers have a new strategy for dealing with their problem patient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cryptanalysis: Hell is Round The Corner (Prequel)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the first in a series, written by a friend who wished me to post these in their stead, about Rung coping with having slavecoding. It is basically beautiful indulgent Rung whump and I'm so glad author anon let me talk them into allowing me to post it. Will eventually have Whirl/Rung.

Rung onlined and took immediate inventory of changes in his frame—only to find none. He tensed up and scanned again, looking for even the slightest changes. He'd been put through forty-seven surgeries thus far, and he'd never onlined to—to _nothing_. Perhaps they'd altered his scanner this time, and that was the reason it had failed to detect anything.

But something else—it felt like there was something else under his plating, beneath even his protoform. Something felt _changed_ in a much deeper way than something as trivial as a scanner. Anticipation bristled at the base of his helm, but he had no idea what or why—

And then his handler spoke. “Wake up, pet.”

“I am no one's _pet_ ,” Rung began, but his own vocalizer muted itself as he tried to continue with, 'least of all _yours_.'

He reset his vocalizer as his handler laughed. “Don't insult your master.”

“Just because I am willing to go along with your tests and surgeries does not—” His vocalizer muted itself again, and he scanned it for damage, but it _should_ have been perfectly operational. A sinking sensation dragged at his spark, and he lifted a servo to his throat. “What have you done to me?”

“We have taken the useless and found a use,” his handler answered. “We have given you a function.”

The disgustingly saccharine tone amplified Rung's dread. The current beneath the words—the EM field, the body language, the tone—all reeked of smug self-satisfaction. _Haven't we been good to you?_ he seemed to be asking. _Better than you deserve?_

To Rung's horror, something within him answered _yes_ and waited in giddy anticipation.

For what? He didn't want to know. Twisting sideways to set his pedes to the ground, he started for the door, deciding that any post-surgery care could be performed by someone who didn't set his plating on edge. “If you'll excuse me, I have a wellbeing clinic to run—”

His handler pointed sharply at the floor before him. “Kneel.”

Rung's knees buckled of their own accord; he caught himself against the medbay berth. “What?”

“Kneel,” his handler repeated, voice unnervingly calm. “You can manage that much, at least, can't you?”

Rung's vocalizer muted his reply to static, and his knees _burned_ as he fought to stay upright. His arms shook, barely supporting his weight—his entire frame willed him to fall.

To obey.

“You can't do this,” Rung began, but something within him—new coding?—surged to the forefront. He could not tell his Master what was and was not possible! His Master's word was law, more absolute than physics.

He fell to his knees, and the burn receded. The coding purred with delight to find him where he belonged—as if he belonged at someone's pedes!

Flooded with sudden self-loathing, he fought to right himself—to stand through the pain—but his joints had locked themselves into place.

“Just give in,” his handler suggested. “If you fight, you'll only suffer. Why bother?”

Rung practically hissed, unable to articulate the rage tearing through him. He wanted to stand—wanted to leave—but he'd been trapped in his own frame. If he'd been bound, he could have fought against the restraints, could have fished lockpicks from secret compartments. This control went deeper.

“Oh, my pet, you really must answer if you're asked a question.” The mech reached down to tip his chin up, and Rung refused to give into the too-gentle touch. “Why are you fighting this?”

His vocalizer onlined of its own accord. “I don't want this,” he said.

“Of course you do.” The mech smiled as he forced Rung to look up at an angle that made his neck ache. “Everyone wants to fulfill their function.”

“My function is my work at the clinic.”

“Ah ah,” his handler tutted. “No speaking out of turn. A good servant should only speak when prompted. And you do want to be a good servant, don't you?”

“I am not a service droid!” Rung said—or tried to say. Static consumed the words. He had a strut-deep urge to answer the question, and two sides of him warred: the coding sang _yes_ while the rest of him screamed _no_.

Not answering was in itself an act of rebellion; Rung forced his vocalizer offline again and again as the coding activated it. Beneath his plating, his protoform burned—every circuit lit up, far too hot, leaving an acrid scent in the air.

He'd endured forty-seven surgeries at their hands. He could at least spare himself this indignity. They could not force words from his lips.

“I asked you a question, pet.”

The agony peaked. Sheer need almost overwhelmed him—he bit down on his thumb to stop himself from speaking, and the coding took it as a much-deserved punishment, relishing the dent of the sensitive metal beneath his denta. When he yanked the thumb out of his mouth, the code sent a shock through his system.

“No,” he answered, and he began to burn again from the inside out. He could feel the environmental protections on his sparkcasing offline—could feel his own frame attempting to snuff his spark. “No!”

His Master grinned. “You'll be fun to bring to heel.”

***

Rung knelt in the center of the lounge. Senators and Functionists—including One through Twelve of Twelve—mingled and chatted throughout the room. A celebration on Rung's behalf, they'd claimed—for finally finding a use in the useless—but he already knew they intended to break him.

His handler had left him with the order to obey those in the room—they would all be his Masters. His handler had then warned them that he still needed training, and they had laughed.

He hadn't refueled since the orn prior to his surgery—or what he'd believed to be a surgery. His tanks sat at an uncomfortable sixty percent. Nothing dangerous, but certainly enough for him to look at the high-grade with a certain degree of longing.

“Come here,” a senator ordered, and Rung immediately fought the urge to obey.

The coding pleaded with him. He was _failing_ his Masters. They had gone to such lengths to give him a purpose, and he insisted on disappointing them. It objected to the squandering of such a gift.

When he still refused to move, his armor began to strain in the direction he'd been commanded to go, pulling away from his protoform as if drawn by magnets. Each joint and hinge and transformation seam bent past any natural angle, sending shooting pain right down to his struts.

“He really does need training,” one of the Functionists said, venting a disappointed sigh that made the coding _ache_ , desperate to obey. He leaned over Rung and plucked at the flared plating with claws sharp enough to slice right through him—the touch a warning future violence. “He gave you an order.”

Rung tried to protest, but his vocalizer would produce only static—and then only if he managed to get it online in the first place. Every circuit in his frame begged him to move forward, but he _refused_. What autonomy he retained he would use to the fullest extent possible.

The Functionist's claws danced over the straining armor—the moment Rung winced at a particularly sensitive platelet, he ripped it off. Shock and pain broke Rung's resolve long enough for his limbs to force him to crawl three or four steps toward the senator. He had to bury his fingers into the gaps between the metal plates of the floor to get himself to stop.

He ran a scan—the platelet removed had torn off a chunk of his protoform along with it and left energon leaking from his side, but no one moved to stop the flow.

When someone behind him reached down to snap off another flared piece of armor, the coding forced him _into_ the touch, begging for more punishment, eager to serve. More servos and claws tore at him from all sides, ripping off armor wherever they could.

Fuel levels at fifty percent, his back singing with agony and slick with energon, he found himself gasping at the pedes of the senator.

“I'm hungry,” the senator said. “Feed me.”

He tried to fight the order—he _tried_. But the coding informed him that he would not be able to process fuel until his Masters had refueled, and his own energy levels were plummeting by the moment. Defiance was one thing, but he could—and likely would—die if the coding lit up his circuits and superheated the energon slicking his back, which was, after all, flammable.

When he staggered to his pedes, however, the senator caught him by the arm and grinned. “On my lap.”

Rung's knees couldn't support him; he sat obediently on the senator's lap, the coding prompting him to look for a fuel source nearby—but then the senator twisted Rung's helm to expose his throat. Before Rung could even try to jerk away, he'd sunk his denta into the exposed mesh.

The coding made him go limp and relaxed against the senator, denying him all control of his limbs. His neck flared with pain, but his frame remained unresponsive as the senator began to suck energon directly from a major line in his throat.

“He tastes sweet.” The senator laughed. “Try some.”

The coding recognized the order wasn't meant for Rung even before others crowded in. A claw slit a line in his arm to allow a proboscis to slide into the vein and directly siphon energon away. An unseen mech began to drink from the wounds on his back.

Fuel levels at twenty percent, Rung tried to get his limbs back under his control—tried to push away the mouths and proboscides and claws and servos—but the coding insisted that this was the finest Purpose of them all—bodily serving his Masters, giving the fuel from his own lines. His thoughts ran disjointed and foggy, his frame overheating from the close quarters.

“Please,” he tried to say, but he'd been forbidden from speaking out of turn, and his frame felt too far away. The stinging and aching of the lacerations dulled into a warm glow.

“Show us your spark, little one.”

Rung knew the voice only as Master; his chest plates tried to part at once. He whined as he sent overrides to guard it from them. Not that—not _that_. They'd stripped his frame and rebuilt him. They'd turned his own mind against him. They couldn't have his spark, too. That was _his_.

“Show us your spark, or I'll pull your chestplates aside myself.”

“No,” Rung begged. Fuel levels below ten percent—the room swam. “Please, no.”

A hand forced itself into the transformation seam and _pulled_.

Rung almost didn't recognize his own scream over the sound of screeching metal. He heard the clatter his chestplate made when tossed aside to land on the floor, but the sensation of a hand on his spark was what had him scrambling against the code.

“No, no!” Each word prompted the code to squeeze his voxcoder, but Rung forced them out over short-range comms whenever it went offline, pushing back with his field when his frame failed to respond. “No, _please_ , no!”

“This belongs to us,” Master said, running filthy fingers over Rung's spark. “You can't keep it from us. It's ours.”

“It's mine,” Rung tried to say, but the coding knew it was a lie and ate the words with static.

Fuel levels at five percent, Rung's nonessential systems began to automatically shut down to conserve energy, cutting off his access to short-range comms and taking the last voice he'd managed to keep. His optics offlined in grief.

“He's running dry,” someone said. Rung couldn't pinpoint the voice—knew it was one of his Masters and felt the coding twist with guilt for not having more fuel to provide.

“Tip your head up, little one,” another said, and he obeyed. “Don't swallow a drop.”

Fuel filled his mouth, but the coding controlled his intake—he could not consume it. Denta bit at his lips until they parted, then sucked at the energon in his mouth, taking it from him.

With so little energy, he could not even think of fighting as they took the much-needed energon from his own mouth. If he remained slack and compliant, they didn't bite him. If he went where directed, they didn't rip the armor from his frame.

His spark felt filthy as hands and claws pawed and pinched at it. It pulled his attention from the mouths on his hands and fuel lines.  
When his fuel levels hit two percent, his frame began to go into emergency medical stasislock, and relief coursed through him. Whatever they did while he was offline, at least he—

“Stay online,” one of his Masters ordered, and it overrode the automatic stasis lock.

A new EM field full of hunger swarmed against his helm as claws tipped his head back again, and a proboscis forced itself between his slack lips and down his intake.

It tripped his gag reflex, and he immediately choked on the latest mouthful of energon. A few precious gulps got down into his fuel tanks, but the rest ended up all over the senator who was grinding against his spark.

Fuel levels back up to five percent, he just barely had the energy to think, ' _Serves him right_ ,' before the mech shoved him away—by the spark.

The coding begged him to apologize, but Rung could only lie crumpled in agony as his spark pulsed. Without armor to protect it, he could see it flickering—he drew his hands up to guard it, wondering when the glass panel in his chest had shattered. He hadn't heard it over the skreel of torn metal.

“Unspool your cables,” a voice ordered, and his fingers fumbled for them without his consent. They snatched it out of his trembling hands before he could take it back, jacking it into something without an EM field—after a moment, he managed to online his optics and get a look at it.

A cable-splitter. Dread mounted in Rung's stinging spark as the crowd above him began jacking in, and his body longed to complete the circuit and pass back the unwanted charge, but no one jacked into him in turn. Instead, several of them began forcing their excess charge over the lines while others began rifling through his processor and memory banks, the coding automatically removing any firewalls they encountered. They had full access to his brain module, and they ripped through it the way they'd peeled off his plating and drained the energon from his lines, leaving only agony in their wake.

And meanwhile the charge in his own frame mounted dangerously high. He couldn't tell how many mechs were using him as a charge sink, but warnings had begun flashing across his HUD as they fired him up. Someone else plugged the cable-splitter into their port, and the charge spiked, tipping him into emergency mechanical overload.

His circuits stung and prickled and burned as the charge left him, sensitized beyond anything he'd previously experienced—and then they poured more charge in, and it tripped another painful overload—and another, and another, until he was screaming and clawing at the floor, incoherent and in more agony than he'd known one frame could take and remain online.

Not that the code would allow him to slip into stasis, even with his fuel levels ostensibly at zero percent. He was literally running on fumes—he could feel the hiss of his systems straining to burn up the lubricant that developed naturally in his joints, the thin veneer of oil that made plating shine and guarded against rust, anything that could be consumed to keep him powered on as they'd demanded.

They twisted his frame at odd angles, grinding against him to enhance their charge, and the lack of lubrication became more and more apparent—his joints screeched when they contorted him into new positions, and the pain _everywhere_ grew unbearable.

His frame was wracked with one more mechanical overload, and he powered off.

***

Rung was not permitted to return to his clinic that night or any night thereafter; he was constantly in the company of at least one of his Masters at any given time. They allowed him to refuel only after they'd all topped off; they permitted him to recharge only when it suited them.

It took five more 'parties' before Rung accepted that fighting the code was futile. It took another three before he could feign subservience and devotion enough to earn the privilege of medical attention for all the wounds he'd accrued.

“Now that you're properly domesticated, we can lengthen your leash,” one of his Masters told him, petting Rung's spark absentmindedly. “Wouldn't you like to go to a proper gathering with me, little one?”

Rung had learned to go limp when they toyed with his spark; sudden movements risked irreparable damage. He nodded with great care, not shifting his chassis at all.

Another Master approached, retracting his own chest plates to reveal a spark the coding sang to join with. “I want a turn.”

The coding flared with agony—two Masters in conflict was tantamount to a reality-warping paradox. A Master could speak only the Absolute Truth.

“Go on,” the Master fondling Rung's spark said. He withdrew his hand from the spark chamber with one final pinch. “The little one will stay online and listen, won't you?”

Impossible during a spark merge. “Yes, Master,” his mouth said.

He patted Rung's helm, and the code prompted him to arch into the touch, greedy for the implied approval. The other Master pressed their sparks together, and Rung's processors continued to take in information as his spark—his self, his very being—got drawn into the tide of the merge. Out of sync, he felt split and shattered with pain.

“When we're in public, you will call me Senator.”

“Yes, Master,” his mouth said—comfortable, familiar, rote. Sights and sounds from a life he'd never experienced pressed into him, showing him the agony of waking to a frame without hands, without a face.

“You will not kneel unless ordered to do so.”

In the memory, he had no mouth. His vocalizer activated without it. “Yes, Master.”

“Speak clearly when spoken to or don't speak at all.”

How to speak clearly without a mouth? The memory pushed post-surgery aches into his frame, clouding his processor. He nodded through the pain instead—and the merged Functionist brought a claw down to still his helm.

“Stay _still_ ,” he hissed, grinding his spark down again to trigger another memory exchange—this time one of Rung's, just sitting in his office with a letter from a friend, a rare quiet moment he'd turned to as a sanctuary when the torture wore him down to nothing but code and made him forget what he'd been.

Now tainted with the snide impressions of his Master mocking his idleness and uselessness.

The unmerged Master continued with his list of rules for public contact, and the code eagerly structured relevant subroutines for the situations he described.

He survived three more memories of his own, framed to degrade and humiliate him for any moments of comfort, then remained still and silent as his Master brought himself to overload mocking him. His own charge meant nothing; he would not overload without permission, and even then they only ever permitted him the painful, mechanical kind.

As the Functionist released his spark and withdrew, another Master approached, yanking at Rung's cables. It pinched and stung his already oversensitized circuitry, but he didn't resist or complain—a complaint always resulted in punishment, and he'd already been ordered to vivisect himself twice in the last decaorn. Turning secret compartments inside-out to prove he had no hidden function—as if he could hide anything from his Masters. Stripping his own armor away and then removing his limbs to offer up as a gift. No, he didn't want to do that a third time in as many days.

And anyway, even being used as a capacitor wasn't intolerable. He'd learned tricks to speed up the process and distance himself from his frame; the excess charge and mechanical overloads didn't hurt nearly as much as vivisection.

“Repeat the rules back to me.”

“I am to call you Senator,” Rung said. “I will not kneel unless ordered to. I will speak clearly when addressed or remain silent. I will attend to your needs as appropriate for the setting, such as fetching drinks or engaging in polite conversation.”

The list went on, and Rung offlined his optics, engaging protocols to stimulate the Master interfacing with him.

His code delighted in serving as a fragtoy. He just wanted to sleep.

***

The gathering for dignitaries included more than just his Masters—in fact, the Master who'd brought him was the only one in attendance he needed to serve. But he hadn't faced the company of other mechs since his change, and he could barely meet their optics. Some of them were acquaintances who looked at him with arched optic ridges as he did his Master's bidding.

This was his first chance to experience anything beyond a berth or a 'party,' however, and he wanted to be allowed out again. Even if shame roiled in his tanks as his Master patted his aft and sent him to gather fuel and made him hand-feed him. Hand-feeding was almost nice; it satisfied the code without pain. And the entire time he was at the gathering, no one touched his spark.

For that respite alone, he'd play along. He could feign devotion well enough to amuse his Master; he could be a good slave.

And the slave coding _loved_ that. Every fulfilled order sent a thrill of unwanted pride through him. It drank up and reveled in the humiliation of being paraded around like a decoration in front of former colleagues. _Yes, look at the function I've been granted_ , that part of him sang. _Look how useful I am now._

It grated against the part of him that still resisted the coding. He'd been useful _before_. Usefulness didn't determine an individual's worth, regardless—he'd taught that to his patients for centuries.

In retrospect, that line had probably been dangerous—small wonder the Functionists had stripped him of his practice.

As he pressed himself obediently against his Master's arm, he wondered how many onlookers knew what had been done to him. Wondered how many thought he'd done this of his own accord. None of them were friends of his, but he'd never forged particularly close ties with his peers, preferring a professional distance. Perhaps they thought that he'd given up the challenges of therapy for the ease of being a fragtoy.

With the way the senator—his Master—handled him, none of the onlookers could doubt that role. His use was surely apparent to anyone who paid him so much as a glance.

At the end of the night, the senator brought him back to his compound, where any one of his Masters could come and claim him at will. The room usually reserved for parties had only a handful of mechs within, but Rung fell to his knees automatically; he knew his role.

“How did he do?” one of the Masters lounging on the couch asked. “Give you any trouble?”

“Quite the contrary.” The Master who'd taken him out for the night patted Rung's helm. “He was extremely well behaved.”

The coding purred with delight, but Rung said nothing; he had not been spoken to.

“In fact, I thought a reward might be in order.” The servo patting Rung's helm slid down to cup his chin and force his gaze upward. “And I thought all of you might like a little show.”

Dread crept around the base of Rung's spark, and his Master laughed.

“Lay him out on the table, then,” one of the other Masters jeered. “I can't see from here.”

Rung went where directed, splaying himself across the tabletop in the center of the room. Decoration again—a pretty ornament on display. The coding parted his chest plating automatically, baring his interfacing equipment and spark for their viewing pleasure.

He braced himself as his Master's hand came down, preparing himself for the assault on his spark, but those fingers dipped into the sensitive spark chamber instead, drawing charge and a shameful rush of arousal.

“Moan for me, little one,” his Master said. “I want to hear you _scream_.”

Confusion distracted the part of Rung's processor not in the direct sway of the code, leaving it room to take full control. A horribly erotic sound came out of his vocalizer, and the hot crackle of charge that chased it made his spark flare for all to see.

They'd never allowed him his own pleasure—not once in the ten or more vorns they'd spent breaking him—and now it _burned_ through his systems. The coding had been told this was a reward; it arched eagerly into every touch and whined at any loss of contact, desperate for more approval. Rung's processor locked up as charge built up—it had been too long since charge had been anything other than agony.

His very frame _wanted_.

He groaned and begged and pleaded as the coding provided the show his Masters desired, the reward being immediate and intimate. Fingers kneading sore cables, teasing sensitive transformation seams, stroking the inner walls of his spark chamber—

Then he overloaded—a genuine, full-body rush of pleasure and release—and the hands retreated, leaving him venting hard on the tabletop, half a dozen pairs of optics fixed on him.

With the charge cleared, he came back to himself. Horror and disgust flooded him, though the coding wouldn't allow him to hide his spark from view or mute his vocalizer to stop the residual whimpers that continued to creep out as aftershocks wracked his frame.

They laughed as he turned his face away from them to hide sparking optics.

“Isn't it nice to have a function, little one?” his Master cooed, tweaking his chin. “Don't we treat you so much better than you deserve?”

He practically choked on his shame. “Yes, Master.”

***

They left him there for display after all such 'rewards'—spread-eagled on the table, free for the touching and taking. To his great shame, he could feel his frame automatically begin to heat after he'd been taken out on the town as arm candy. His frame knew what waited for him at the compound; his frame knew it would get release.

They'd trained him well.

He _hated_ it. He didn't want their touch—the sick feeling in his spark as they ran their hands over his frame, the desire to purge that followed the influx of involuntary charge and arousal. His frame overruled him and obeyed their every whim, more in sync with the slave-coding than with Rung himself.

Fifty vorns of conditioning would affect any mech, he told himself. Looking up at his Master's simpering face as he showed off his pet service droid at the party, he couldn't quite accept it. Somewhere along the way, he'd stopped fighting. He hadn't so much as said _no_ in the last few hundred years. His circuitry never tried to melt him from the inside. His spark chamber didn't try to snuff him out.

He was their pet. Tamed and domesticated and obedient. Meekly gathering energon and lying back to let them frag his spark and dump their charge into his frame as they pleased. As familiar arousal began to heat him once again, a wave of frustrated anger overtook him.

“You see? He _loves_ the attention. Isn't that right, little one?” his Master asked, and the anger turned to _rage_.

“In the sense that a carformer _chooses_ to turn into a vehicle, yes,” Rung said sweetly. The coding let him because of the tone, the agreement—it didn't realize until too late that his Master had recoiled as if slapped. Too late to mute him. Too late to stop him.

“Adaptus granted us our alt-modes,” his Master said, his voice painfully, deliciously tight.

“As you granted me my function,” Rung said, still saccharine, still smiling. “And you know how _grateful_ I am.”

The sedition was entirely in his inflection, too subtle for the coding to shush. He'd said nothing it deemed untrue, after all.

He'd obeyed the order to make small talk when directed; he'd made himself sound agreeable; the coding twisted nervously as Master's face filled with displeasure anyway.

“I think perhaps you've had enough to drink,” his Master said. “Let me take you home.”

“Thank you, Senator,” Rung said, and his own smile felt like a knife as the crowd parted before them.

***

“You embarrassed me in front of half the Senate,” his Master hissed, shoving him into his quarters. “They _know_ what you are.”

And they knew that he'd still lost control. Rung laughed before the coding could short out his vocalizer, giddy in the face of his Master's humiliation. It could burn him—it could kill him—anything at all was better than _this_.

“Trying to imply choice in form.” His Master's fist swung out sharply, catching Rung's chin and knocking him into the air for a sickening second before he crashed to the ground. “Trying to imply choice in function!” His pede came down on the glass panel above Rung's spark, shattering it. Shards rained down, cutting him at the core. “If there's a choice, _turn into something useful_.”

An order! The coding whirred, scrambling automatically for control of his t-cog, desperate to appease his angered Master.

“Like what?” Rung spat energon from his split lip at his Master's pedes, ignoring the glitter of glass as it clattered free of his chest. “I thought you'd already given me a _use_.”

The coding had hesitated, too. It knew as well as Rung did that his Master would be furious at the sight of his true alt-mode. It confounded them all. It was an insult.

“You spoke of carformers,” his Master said. “Let's see if you can turn into a car.”

Rung began to scoff, but then his transformation seams screamed. He doubled over in agony, trying to figure out what had gone wrong—

The coding had his t-cog. Dread swept through his spark. _The coding had his t-cog, and Master's laws were more absolute than physics_. “No!”

“What's that? You can't choose?” his Master sang. “That's strange, I thought choice was 'the right of all sentient beings.' That's the sort of deception you're encouraging, isn't it? Show me. _Turn into a car_.”

Rung's t-cog heated furiously, and his plating split along seams that had never been meant to bend. Schematics flurried around his processor as the coding frantically tried to find a template to imprint against. They had one grafted tire to work with—his back plating tore away from his protoform as the wheel strained toward the floor, spinning helplessly, uselessly in the fresh puddle of energon.

Perhaps his chest window could serve as a windshield, the coding decided, shoving it at ninety degree odds with the wheel. Gears within him slipped and spun wildly, stripping themselves down against twisted plating.

Struts snapped as his body strained to accommodate his Master's wishes. His spark flashed and burned, exposed by the shifting mess of parts, and his Master reached out to grab it—to _squeeze_ it—until Rung's vocalizer shorted from the sheer volume of his screams.

He choked on energon as fuel lines pinched and snapped under the strain of his mangled plating, and his bare protoform tore itself apart to rebuild itself in Master's desired image. He'd thought he knew agony—thought feeling his spark gutter or his circuits melt him alive was the worst pain imaginable.

Not so. It could always, _always_ be worse.

His t-cog whirred and whined and smoked in his chassis, pushing and pulling and scrambling without progress, his limbs all shattered beyond recognition. Even the coding could not warp them further—every bit of mesh had been sundered; every strut's integrity had been compromised.

The pede came down against his half-transformed face and pressed hard enough to crack his undamaged optic. “Are you sorry?”

Rung fizzled in response, unable to speak, unable to access short-range comms, unable even to manage his EM field. Fuel levels at sixty percent and plummeting rapidly. He'd die in under a joor without medical attention. If he hadn't come directly from a party, he would already be offline.

“ _Answer me_.”

His split servo shuddered against the steel floor, tracing an apologetic glyph in the energon he'd left.

“You had better be sorry. Get yourself to the medic,” his Master snapped, driving a pede against his nose to crush it. “And then get back and clean up this mess. You're a disgrace.”

His coding thought it was merciful of Master to leave the door open so he could crawl to obey his orders.

***

Forcing him to transform became a party trick. Airplane, unicycle, scooter, helicopter—the slightest hint of resistance immediately met with futility and agony in equal measures.

He'd tolerated four and a half thousand years of being a service droid and frag toy and thought nothing could be worse, but there was _always_ worse. He simply did not have the imagination to know what to expect or predict.

At one point he'd literally turned himself inside out, let six of them frag his spark at once. There was nothing— _nothing_ —he could fight. Another thousand years passed before he was allowed out of the compound again; another fifty vorns passed after that before they allowed him another pleasurable overload.

If anyone had known his designation before, they'd surely forgotten it. He was _pet_ , he was _little one_ , he was _theirs_. Spark and mind and body—they'd taken it all.

When they were through with him, they would lock him in his habsuite with orders to stay until he was retrieved. He never went without orders for more than a joor—never recharged more than a few breems at a stretch. His medical treatment only brought him back to the barest standard of care so that he could continue to be of service, and they never induced stasis or gave him inhibitors for the pain during surgeries.

After two hundred fifty vorns, he begged for death. They overloaded him until he offlined instead, then drained all but the barest traces of his energon while he was out, and stripped him of his armor. He was forced to spend a vorn completed naked before them, a bare protoform without even the pretense of protection.

It took genuine devotion to earn that pretense back.

After two hundred eighty vorns, he could not even pretend to disobey, to hesitate. He served with complete abandon and took his punishments with spark-deep repentance.

He belonged to them, body and soul. He had found his purpose.

***

And then he woke. Fully-recharged, no nagging of code. Peace and stillness throughout his processor.

He lay on his back and marveled at the silence, unable to comprehend it. His frame ached from hard use the night before, but he'd completed a full defragmentation cycle. They'd not allowed that in—in—

He looked at the door of his habsuite. They'd ordered him to stay put, so he stayed.

The joors passed, and he expected the code to pinch at him, to tell him to serve, even though he was technically obeying orders. When it didn't, a creeping sense of unease—of disbelief—began to curl around him. He could not remember a time when he'd been allowed a moment to himself. The code had never even allowed him to long for it—it had shut down the thoughts as soon as it caught them and forced him to punish himself.

He frowned up at the ceiling. The code wasn't preventing the thoughts _this_ time.

Onlining his vocalizer, he addressed the empty room. “I want to stay in bed all day. By myself.”

Slaves didn't express desires. Slaves didn't speak out of turn. His vocalizer did not force itself offline, and a sudden, terrified joy raced through him.

“I want to eat.” Another desire—this one _explicitly_ forbidden. When the code didn't push back against him, he pushed himself slowly to his feet and left the bed he'd been confined to. He made it three steps before he started shaking, anxiety crackling under his plating as he waited for the punishment he'd been trained to expect.

Nothing. _Nothing_. He made it to the door and pressed his forehead against the cool metal.

“I'm going to leave the room now,” he whispered, fear thrumming through his circuits. He'd never left his room unaccompanied unless he was in pieces and dragging himself to the medbay. He _couldn't_.

The door whooshed aside, and he _did_.

He had to keep one servo against the wall at all times to anchor himself. The halls were deserted, empty as he'd never seen them. Slowly, carefully, he made his way to the party room—the room with the energon dispenser.

No one and nothing awaited him aside from the quiet murmuring of a vidscreen displaying the news. A cube of high-grade sat on the table before it—the table where he'd been laid out for his Masters' entertainment.

He sank into the sofa and clasped his hands in front of him. That high-grade belonged to his Masters—even if he found the dispenser, it wasn't his to take.

“...the senators will be mourned,” the reporter said, and all of his attention snapped to the screen. “Services will be held three orns from now to give their families time to prepare.”

He watched in silence as the camera panned over the lifeless corpses of the mechs who had owned him. Rebels and revolution had wiped them out, and the Functionists had perished along with them—One through Twelve of Twelve lay splintered and gray around their table.

He had no Masters.

It took nearly a breem to reach a shaking hand out to take the high-grade; it took another ten before he could bear to take a sip.

It was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted.


End file.
